Why did it take al­most two months for Gov­ern­ment to clear­ly say it did not con­sid­er T&T bound by the de­ci­sions of the Rio Treaty on Venezuela and does not recog­nise sanc­tions on the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic, in­clud­ing the trav­el ban on its Vice-Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez?

Has the Gov­ern­ment, in so do­ing, al­so again put the coun­try at risk of US sanc­tions, or is this a case of a small is­land state stand­ing up for what it sees as in­ter­na­tion­al law and in keep­ing with its own for­eign pol­i­cy?

In re­sponse to a mat­ter on the ad­journ­ment of the Sen­ate, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses al­leged the dis­tor­tion of the Rio Treaty to treat with mat­ters in­ter­nal to Venezuela, with­out the re­quest or con­sent of that coun­try, is ques­tion­able and does not sit well with the in­tend­ed pur­pos­es of the treaty.

This view is at vari­ance with that of the Amer­i­cans, whose Am­bas­sador to Port-of-Spain Joseph Mon­del­lo, has in­sist­ed T&T’s oblig­a­tions as a par­ty to the treaty are un­am­bigu­ous­ly clear that all mea­sures im­posed—like the trav­el re­stric­tions on Ms Ro­driguez—are bind­ing on all treaty par­ties.

T&T as a sov­er­eign coun­try must have its own for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tion, which should be aligned to Cari­com’s po­si­tion and in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al law and con­ven­tion on the is­sue.

We should have had these con­ver­sa­tions with the Amer­i­cans since the vote on the ad­just­ment to the treaty in 2019. All talk of sanc­tions may not have reared its head then, es­pe­cial­ly since the ju­ry re­mains out on whether the fu­el from Paria Fu­el Trad­ing was al­leged­ly sent to Venezuela with T&T’s knowl­edge.

It is why we ac­cept Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that T&T should con­tin­ue to recog­nise Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and not Mr Juan Guai­do as the pres­i­dent of Venezuela.

As the For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter stat­ed, to do oth­er­wise would run counter to the po­si­tion of Cari­com and the Unit­ed Na­tions.

To be sure, recog­nis­ing a gov­ern­ment is not the same as sup­port­ing it and T&T must con­tin­ue to have good neigh­bourly re­la­tions with Venezuela but keep out of its in­ter­nal af­fairs, un­less in­vit­ed to be part of a so­lu­tion.

The prob­lem with Tues­day’s an­nounce­ment is that it took so long for Min­is­ter Moses to ar­tic­u­late a pol­i­cy. Where was he be­fore and what ad­vice had he giv­en to Gov­ern­ment? Has he been a fo­cal point for the ad­min­is­tra­tion in this is­sue? If so, why did Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young so of­ten lead dis­cus­sions on for­eign pol­i­cy in the mat­ter?

From the fall­out with Ja­maica, to the dis­agree­ment with Bar­ba­dos to the dis­as­ter in the vote at the OAS, Min­is­ter Moses has failed to lead.

The Prime Min­is­ter was forced by pub­lic pres­sure to ap­point an in­ves­ti­ga­tor in­to the cir­cum­stances that led to T&T ab­stain­ing from the OAS vote on the Rio Treaty ad­just­ment and has kept the find­ings out of the pub­lic’s sight.

Mr Moses may have been the Prime Min­is­ter’s child­hood friend but his lethar­gy has done Dr Row­ley and the coun­try no favour.